| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

An American Planter: Stephen Duncan of Antebellum Natchez and New York. By Martha Jane Brazy. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. xvi, 232 pp. $45.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-3141-1.)

Scholars of U.S. history have long been preoccupied with the southern planter class. Indeed, there may even come a day in the not too distant future when studies on the subject surpass the profusion of works detailing Puritan New England. Nevertheless, Martha Jane Brazy's biography of Stephen Duncan not only explores the life of an important figure in the antebellum South, it contributes in a meaningful way to the ever-growing literature on the planter class. The life of this "master of capitalism," according to Brazy, reveals the inadequacy of often accepted depictions of planters as genteel agrarians or one-dimensional labor lords (p. 2). The scale and variety of Duncan's investments suggest the absolute compatibility of slavery with modern capitalism. An American Planter offers a compelling portrait of a man who did not fit within the discrete regional, economic, and cultural categories so often found in Old South historiography.

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